1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portable-terminal holder being able to charge a portable terminal and relay data between the portable terminal and a host computer.
The present invention also relates to a radio communication system including a plurality of radio communication terminals each of which has an absolute ID and a capability of performing radio communication with other radio communication terminals in conformity with a specific radio communication standard.
2. Description of Related Art
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-334299 discloses that a rechargeable battery of a scanner unit functioning as a portable terminal is charged when the scanner unit is placed on a holder, and accordingly charging terminals of the scanner unit are in contact with charging terminals of the holder. The scanner unit and the holder connectable by a cable to a POS register serving as a host computer are configured to perform wireless communication between each other, thereby enabling data transmission between the scanner unit and the POS register.
A user can use such a scanner unit for reading information codes such as bar codes or QR codes in a workplace as far as 10 m away from the host computer thanks to the wireless communication between the scanner unit and the holder.
However, in a case where the user uses the scanner unit for many hours, it frequently occurs that the battery of the scanner unit becomes exhausted, and needs to be recharged. If the workplace is distant from the host computer, the user has to bring the scanner unit to the holder placed in a location distant from the workplace, because the length of the cable connecting the holder and the host computer is generally limited to 1 m-3 m. This lowers the working efficiency, especially when the user uses only one scanner unit. This problem arises also in holders for cellular phones or PDAs.
Generally, in a radio communication system including a plurality of radio terminals, each of the radio communication terminals is provided with an absolute ID in order to avoid radio communication between irrelevant radio communication terminals and to improve network communication speed.
Since all the radio communication terminals have to be assigned the absolute ID uniquely throughout an area over which the same radio communication standard is applied, the absolute ID is described by a very long code which is hard for users of the radio communication terminals to recognize. In a case where radio communication terminals conforming to the Bluetooth standard constitute a network, Bluetooth addresses are used as the absolute IDs for performing a connection authentication. The radio communication terminals can recognize each other by performing the connection authentication generally called “paring” that uses the Bluetooth addresses each of which is described as a long code having a 48-bit length.
As disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2001-144767, the connection between two radio communication terminals may be established by a handshake in which a calling terminal receives an address of a called terminal through a communication network to sign up to the communication network. Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2001-144767 also discloses that information items about radio communication terminals that have been detected to be within a certain communication range, for example, their device names are displayed on a display of a calling radio communication terminal, so that the user can easily select, from among the detected radio communication terminals, an intended party. Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2003-143156 discloses that communication terminals are grouped depending on their communication-group IDs to facilitate the settings of the communication terminals.
For performing a connection authentication in a radio communication network in conformity with the Bluetooth standard, the user has to set a Bluetooth address of a target communication terminal in a calling communication terminal.
However, it is very troublesome for the user to handle the 48-bit Bluetooth addresses, especially in a radio communication system constituted by a host computer not provided with a display device such as an LCD, and peripheral devices (input-output device, data storage, and the like) connected to the host computer through a radio communication network, because the above described technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2001-144767 cannot be used in such a radio communication system. Moreover, even if the host computer is provided with a function of displaying detected communication terminals on its display device to enable selecting, from among them, a communication target, it is not easy for the user to remember their absolute IDs.